WEST LONG BRANCH- As freshman forward Melik Martin inbounded the ball for the Monmouth University basketball team two minutes into the second half of its meeting with St. Peter’s, he reminded his team of an important lesson it learned time and again throughout the season.

“They’re still in this,” he screamed to his teammates as he tossed in the ball.

At a glance, the timing seemed odd. The Hawks were rolling, owning a comfortable 14-point lead they took into halftime after closing the first frame on a 23-6 run. But for a team whose theme in home games this season has been excruciatingly close, crushing losses, the reminder was well-received.

Here’s a reminder for those who haven’t followed along — the Hawks are 4-5 at OceanFirst Bank Center in 2017-18. Of those nine games, six have been decided by five points or less.

Monmouth fell on the wrong side of five of them, including a season low-point loss to Fairfield and subsequent defeat to Niagara, in its last two times out on the floor.

Logically, the Hawks hoped to avoid another game going down to the wire — and that’s exactly what they did.

The Hawks kept their talons on the pedal at the start of second half and left the Peacocks at a distance for most of the second frame. The Peacocks tried to make it a tight game, using full-court pressure and stringing a pair of baskets for a 9-1 run to reduce Monmouth’s lead to nine points with five minutes to play, but the Hawks were never rattled.

They closed the game on a 13-6 run en route to a 73-57 win, giving themselves and those in attendance a comfortable home victory that’s been tough to come by.

“That’s all we preach in practice. In practice, we’ll go through stretches where we’ll be having high energy practices and then the energy dies down … we’ve seen it happen in games and then it ends up where we can’t come back from it. So guys from the bench keeping the energy up and it translated on the court. Everybody just has high energy and we performed the way we performed.”

Monmouth’s (9-17, 5-9) fifth home win of the season was made more impressive by the fact it came without two of its best players on the floor.

While star forward Micah Seaborn’s sixth straight missed game didn’t come as a surprise, Austin Tilghman’s absence was not expected.

The senior guard missed his first game of the season three days after he played a season-low 22 minutes in Saturday’s loss to Manhattan.

“Austin has been our warrior all year, and in the Manhattan game, something happened to his shoulder,” head coach King Rice said. "He threw it and he asked to come out of the game, and that was the first time since he’s been here where he asked to come out, so that kind of shook me a little bit.

"I probably left him out longer than I wanted to in Manhattan … I told him there’s no rush to get back. We have guys that can hold him down while he deals with the pain.”

It forced Rice to reach far back in his bench for Dan Pillari. The walk-on guard saw six minutes of action against St. Peter’s, the same amount of time he’s played all year heading into Tuesday.

The stat sheet showed a single turnover and personal foul to Pillari’s name, but Rice was content with what his walk-on gave him.

“Dan has been as good in practice as anybody recently,” Rice said. “I called him last night (to let him know he’s playing). I wanted him to know because sometimes kids, it might’ve shocked him. He’s been sitting there, everytime I come down the bench, he’s looking at me ready, but he hasn’t had the opportunity … I told him I’m ready for him to play.”

Stepping up to fill the void in scoring left by Tilghman were Salnave and Louie Pillari.

The latter was a large reason Monmouth got off to that 23-6 run at the end of the first half. In addition to some sharpshooting that led to a quick eight points in three minutes, Pillari played solid defense at the top of a zone defense the Hawks switched to.

The look gave the Peacocks fits as they hit a single field goal in the final 7:15 of the frame.

“I’m kind of stubborn,” Rice said. “I’m a man-to-man coach. Zone probably would’ve helped us out this year, but I’m a man-to-man coach. I’ve only done (zone) a couple of times this season where I stayed with it for a long time because in the long run, I believe you need to get stops in the man to man. But I will put it out there.

"It was funny because at the start of the second half, I thought ‘I’m just going to go zone out there.’ And then John went zone and I was like ‘this is a fun game to watch. Two teams playing zone.’ But our zone did a great job.”

Salnave picked up where Pillari left off, scoring seven of Monmouth’s first 10 second half points. He finished with a career-high 21 points on a perfect 3-for-3 clip from downtown in what was one of the best performances in his young college career. More importantly in Rice’s eyes, Salnave had zero turnovers.

“He’s really worked hard to get to this point and his best basketball is in front of him,” Rice said. “Did everybody see that Ray had four assists and one turnover tonight? I’ve been calling him Apple, for apple turnover. I’ve been calling him Easy Bake Oven because he’s been putting (the ball) in the oven and letting everyone else take it … but tonight, we’re going to call him Ray. I like calling you Ray more than apple turnover.”

With four games remaining in the regular season, all Monmouth has left to fight for is the best possible seed in the MAAC Tournament next month. The Hawks lone hope in making a third consecutive postseason trip lies on making a run at a conference tournament championship, one which seems unlikely given the way the season ran until now.

But if they take the momentum of Tuesday’s win and play the way they did against the Peacocks in March, anything can happen — especially when the Hawks get their star player back.

Seaborn could’ve played tonight but Rice said he chose to be cautious. He’s expected to return this Sunday at Siena and be ready for the MAAC Tournament, Rice said.

: I want Micah as close to 100 for this stretch run as possible,” Rice said. “He practiced yesterday, was off today, will practice tomorrow. I’m about 90 percent sure he won’t play on Friday but we’re going to talk. I haven’t decided (when he’ll return). I’m leaning toward Sunday just to get his legs underneath him. … then ramp up for the tournament. Micah’s very close. … the rest of the guys should be getting back here soon.”